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Greece's exit from the eurozone would lead to an immediate bankruptcy and suspension of payments in the country and abroad. This implies salaries and pensions in the public sector won't be paid – as they won't partially be in the private sector either. Social services like health and education will either cease to operate or operate at reduced capacity, while unemployment reaches unimaginable proportions (of over 45%).

Initially, the announced exchange rate will be 1 to 1 between the euro and the drachma, but in the following days or weeks it will already soar to 1 to 1000, and rates of 1 to 1500 soon after are not excluded either.

This means that to buy goods, especially imported ones, we will have to pay 3 to 5 times more drachmas than they cost today.

Inflation will reach double-digit and three-digit levels. What we buy today, the following day will cost double.

Then the banks will collapse, interest rates will bloat to triple-digit rates, but all deposits will already be converted into drachmas at the rate of 1 to 1. That is, while our costs multiply, our incomes will slump.

What does a return to the drachma actually imply?

A return to the drachma would affect adversely the entire Greek population, with the exception of:

• the wealthy who have stashed their cash abroad: their purchasing power on the Greek market will be given a boost; they will be able to buy whatever they want in Greece at 1/3 or even 1/5 of its price today;

• exporters of goods who will become much more competitive; unfortunately, Greece is a net importer;

• Greek shipping companies that get paid in foreign currencies for their services;

The urban middle class will disappear and a new wave of poverty will flood our cities.

Those who are already poor, unemployed or retired, will be hit even harder because the state will cease its payments and they won't be able to receive anything from the public sector. Given that the prices of all products will rise, they will become inaccessible to the impoverished ones.

Since the state won't be able to pay for imported oil and natural gas, their supply will be interrupted over long periods – and this will of course be accompanied by power cuts.

The only transactions, which will still be possible, will be those involving exchanges in kind.

The country will stay ungoverned over long periods, because governments will often be forced from office under public pressure and mass protests. In geopolitical terms, the country will slide far below its current clout, and some of its neighbours might use this to force it into painful compromises.

Those who think they have hit the bottom today, and therefore have nothing to lose, are making a terrible mistake: a literally bankrupt country with a currency that no one in the world cares about, will lose any support and this will affect the entire population.

Everything listed above can last 4 to 5 years before the economy begins to crawl its way out of recession – but only if there is a stable political environment and a broad public consensus over the country’s direction.

It is certain that Greece nowadays is experiencing a crisis whose intensity and duration can be compared only with those of the Great Depression of 1929.

Nonetheless, if Grexit materialises, and is followed, which is quite certain, by the nation’s bankruptcy, at least 3-5 years of an even steeper slump will elapse before the country could return to its 2012 levels!

During this time, GDP will decline by 50%, unemployment will go beyond 40% (youth, as ever, will get the roughest end of it), living standards will fall by over 50%, and 60% of the population will find itself below the poverty line.

It must be clear that the likely bankruptcy of Greece won't hit our creditors nearly as hard as the entire Greek population, especially the poorest and the most vulnerable groups in it.

Our creditors will think long and hard before giving us any loans in the future, and interest rates will indeed be inhibiting.

There is something else which should not be overlooked: during such national failures, the Republic itself and the functioning of its institutions will be put to gruesome tests.

Does the nation deserve to go through such an ordeal, of unspecified duration and severity?

We have reprinted this article from www.eyedoll.gr. Its author, Georgios Kofinakos, is a representative of StormHarbour (England) and CEO of EnoliaPremium (Luxembourg)